First dates, like lion safaris, work out best when one avoids throwing food and wearing zebra-print onesies. Play it safe with today’s Groupon: for $25, you get a membership to HowAboutWe.com (up to a $95.88 value). Choose from the following memberships when redeeming your Groupon online:
- 3 months (a $50.97 value)
- 6 months (a $71.94 value)
- 12 months (a $95.98 value)<p>
Lauded by the New York Times and Time Out New York, HowAboutWe.com lets members propose simple date ideas as alluring first impressions to like-minded suitors. The quick sign-up process asks simply for basic information, omitting oft-exaggerated details, such as body type, income, and dragon-slaying credentials, so as to save them for initial face-to-face encounters. Once members post a date idea—always phrased as “how about we …”—other users can find it in the date stream or reach out with private date proposals visible only to the recipient. Though the site features typical online-dating functions such as instant messaging, HowAboutWe.com encourages users to develop their courtship offline, where they can draw emoticons on each other’s face.
HowAboutWe.com
Most online dating sites focus on long-term compatibility between partners, running their hobbies, values, and goals through complex match algorithms. HowAboutWe.com takes a simpler approach, worrying a little more about a stellar first date. This model has earned the site’s co-founders, Aaron Schildkrout and Brian Schechter, nods in The New York Times, Gawker and GQ; it has also earned the site more than a million members.
For singles, the site’s primary feature is a huge remuda of creative date activities proposed by other singles, ranging from oyster tasting to heading to the park to toss around an oyster. Members can check their date partner’s profile, but the focus is on leaving the internet behind to go on creative, outside-the-box dates in the real world. The same goes for the couples’ branch of the site, stocked with creative new date ideas that help keep the magic alive.